Out There: The Open Museum – Pushing the Boundaries of Museums’ Potential

It is almost as much of a shock to realise that it is now more than 20 years since Glasgow was the UK’s first European Capital of Culture, as it was for a southern-orientated arts press that Glasgow had been selected at all.

The older among you will recall that the city defied the nay-sayers and Glasgow 1990 confirmed Scotland’s largest conurbation as one of Europe’s great cultural cities.

Amid the razzmatazz of 3,439 local, national and international events that made up Glasgow 1990’s abundant programme, it was easy to miss the creation of the Open Museum, the brainchild of Julian Spalding who was then Glasgow’s energetic director of museums.

Its premise was a simple one – “to create a community museum that could draw upon any part of the city’s collection and which could exist anywhere” – or put another way, “to democratise the sense of ownership (and thus enjoyment) of the collections, of museums and other cultural spaces and city festivals”. It was a bold, even subversive, ambition.

Out There celebrates 20 years of the growth and development of the Open Museum and its steady integration into the mainstream of Glasgow’s museum philosophy. In one of the book’s numerous introductory chapters, Chris Jamieson, the current manager of the Open Museum, urges the reader to “dip into this book at any place – it is not meant to be read from cover to cover”.

It’s a dangerously enticing piece of advice for a reviewer, but I am made of sterner stuff and, on your behalf, I diligently read each page of this slim volume.

In essence, Out There is a series of valuable case studies drawn from 20 years of practical experience on the frontline. They capture the breadth of the Open Museum’s work – with women’s groups, prisoners, storytellers, people with learning difficulties, asylum seekers and refugees, young people, the LGBT communities, Faslane protestors, and schoolchildren.

It includes the use of reminiscence sessions, oral history recordings and touring exhibitions. It’s a busy and impressive programme.

It’s a revealing book that offers a number of very personal perspectives on the Open Museum’s first two decades as well as glimpses of the commitment of its staff.

It is clear that there have been a number of significant achievements, but there has been blood on the carpet too, when ideas for exhibitions, or even exhibitions themselves, such as one on gangs in the city and another on sadomasochism, the latter using material from the Glasgow’s Burrell Collection, have upset the politicians – the price, perhaps, of democracy.

I suspect that Out There also glosses over some heated internal debate. There’s mention of “a whole Pandora’s box of museological problems – of conservation; security; documentation; governance; curatorship”. You can almost hear the discussion beginning.

What’s missing from Out There, and it’s a significant absence, is the participants’ voice – this is something of a show-and-tell publication for the Open Museum team.

I would have liked to hear more beyond the occasional boxed quote of the view from the other side – the In Here perspective. Measuring the impact of 20 years is a 360-degree task – democracy needs all voices to be heard.

There are, of course, many other museums doing similar work with comparable community groups, but few that have done so with such commitment over such a period of time and with a determination to integrate this approach into every corner of its work and its collection.

In the coming years, the Open Museum will be working closely with Glasgow Museums’ research section, headed by Mark O’Neill, the former head of the service.

This, and the chance to work closely with the cultural area teams, will create fresh partnerships and alliances for the Open Museum with libraries, arts and concert halls. It’s a fascinating prospect.

Watch this space over the next 20 years. Meanwhile, dip into Out There – who knows what you might find?